The Spanish ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered has become the first ever zero emission, all-electric vehicle to complete the Dakar Rally.

ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered

Covering a ~5,600 mile route through Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina would be a major achievement in any electric car, but imagine attempting that in a rally competition, and all the while over extreme off-road conditions, with limited charging opportunities. Truly an amazing feat.

We should note that the ACCIONA finished the 2017 Dakar in 57th (and last place), but more than one-fourth of all teams didn’t finished at all.

Result Time: 111:21:18 (82:31:48 plus 41:00:00 Penalty).

The car itself is equipped with a 150 kWh battery and 250 kW electric motor, with the battery lasting for just around 120 miles per charge (200 km) on the rough terrain, so recharging was key.

In its previous two attempts in 2015 and 2016, ACCIONA was unable to complete the rally. Now the team can think ahead to the next racing and setting the bar even higher…and about beating some more of the ICE competitors.

They managed to finish because 40 percent of the race was cancelled.
It is important to say, that EVs are nowadays not competitive race cars.
But as regular off-road vehicles in developed countries, they may be great. Usually in terrain you drive slow and the ICE is almost idling, a EV has range in hours of driving. See the FullyCharged video with Land Rover EV.

They still beat more than a quarter of the ICE entrants, that did not make it to the finish line. That speaks well to the reliability of the electric rally car, which in the dakar rally is equally important.

Interesting that they had 250kw motors. I wonder how a vehicle with smaller motors would go? I wouldn’t think speed is the main objective as distance between recharges. 100kw/h Tesla has some 300mi range, so you would expect a150kw/h vehicle to be able to better that?
It can only improve with time and effort.

This is a rally, which most of the time is off-road. High energy demand, due to multiple turns, quick acceleration, a track made entirely of gravel, desert and pot-holes and so on.

The competition are heavily modified or custom built Rally cars. And even of those, 25% did not reach the finish line. I bet that today’s production ICE vehicles would not stand a chance in this terrain and break before the finish line as well (or just gut stuck in a sand ditch).

You would have to double the capacity, but then you run into trouble with space and weight.